Story Arcs

Right. So I failed in my maintenance of my blog there for a couple of months. My bad.

So I have that out of the way, on to newer, more pressing matters. First, Next month is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, and I have chosen to participate. Last month I completed 24 Hour Comic Book Day with my roommates and some others and I'm coming off that feeling a little rambunctious. I have never written a novel before, but I am relishing in the challenge. I feel this is a necessary over-reaching. 50,000 words in a month? I don't have that kind of willpower. I really don't. I'm going to get bored and try to quit at some point.

Which is why I have enlisted my friends.

They are there to cajole me, threaten me, and harass me into finishing. 2,000 words a day worth. I have the best friends, I really do.

Second, is the subject of the novel. I once attempted to write a story to deal with my emotions. That story was called Ill Spirits, and I'm going to take a second shot at it. I've never been really good at introspection; it scares the hell out of me, really. With that in mind, I'm going to attempt to turn a whole life of terrible circumstances and decision making into a readable novel. It's going to be modern fantasy, but grounded very much in my hometown (or at least a fictional version of it). The main character has a lot of my same problems. His girlfriend is an amalgamation of both previous ex-girlfriends and what I think my ideal women is. I want this whole thing to be a reflection into how I function.

Wish me luck.

On the gaming front, it's been pretty slow. Al has come out to play a couple of times the last month, but not recently. The apartment has been pretty busy gearing up for various activities (read: The three of our birthdays are in November.)

Played around with creating a Mouse Guard character at the behest of a friend. I really enjoyed the comics, and would love to actually get to play this, but something keeps hanging me up. This is a game about RPing mice, and I have a hard time wrapping my head around that. My character, Kieran, is decidedly un-mouselike. I just don't know how to be meek. In fact, it's kind of boring. I'll give it a shot, but my expectations are not very high. I like playing heroes, not prudent forest creatures.

Oh well.

RPG Basics 101- Preparation

 

     I feel that the best place to begin with playing any RPG is preparation. Getting any group of adults together and on the same page for any length of time is almost impossible. So, in the interest of everyone having fun and not  wasting what could be precious game time, it's always good to be ready to go. This is accomplished two ways. First, etiquette. A few simple guidelines can make any evening of gaming run smoothly. I'll do a numbered list, because they are fun and I just figured out how to do them. 

1. Be Early- It takes a group a little while to settle down after getting to the venue. It usually takes a group about a half an hour to get to the table after arriving, so it never hurts to be a little early. It also gives your  DM a chance to set up and prepare without being rushed
2. Bring Your Gear- Nothing ruins a night faster than forgetting your dice. Or character sheet, rulebook or mini. 
3. Know Your Rules- You do not need to know every little rule, but it is always a good idea to be familiar with the rules that your character uses often. If you are a summoner wizard, read over the summoning rules. Do a lot of grappling? Mark your rule book on that page. A combat can grind to a screeching halt if someone has to go "I'm not sure, let me look that up" every time they use an encounter power. This particular piece of advice is a pet peeve of mine. In the past, as a DM, I have forbidden a player from playing certain classes because they refused to know the rules. 
4. Plan With Your Group- This last point is ensure everyone is going to have fun with their character. It's important during character creation that everyone discusses what they are playing and make sure everyone has all of their bases are covered. This is when you make sure you have a healer, and that you aren't stepping on someone else's character concept. This can be a really fun exercise for the group to do together. 

     The second thing is dice jargon. I know that seems odd, but one of the first thing everyone experiences as a new play is the confusion over the dice. Yes, there can be a lot of them, and yes, they are shaped weird. And reading the rules for how to role them can be like reading algebra if you've new to RPGs.

     RPG dice are most often referred to as a polyhedral set. They come from manufacturers such as Crystal Caste and Chessex in sets of seven different dice per set. They are a four sided, six sided, eight sided, ten sided, twelve sided, twenty sided, and a special ten sided die called a percentile die. They all have special abbreviations to make writing them down much easier. They are as follows.

• d4                    Four Sided
• d6                    Six Sided
• d8                    Eight sided
• d10                  Ten Sided
• d12                  Twelve Sided
• d20                  Twenty Sided
• d100 or d%      The percentile die and the d10 together

     The percentile die is a special case, in that it is almost never rolled alone, only in conjunction with the d10.

     The next piece of the puzzle is rolling multiple dice. The way this usually represented is XdY. X represents the number of dice you need to roll and Y denotes which dice it is you need to roll. So, for example, 3d6 means roll three six-sided dice and add the results. It's that simple.

     And that's it. That's the basics of preparation. Friday's post will be an overview of character creation, specifically aimed at D&D.

I Always Forget the Basics

Back to School season is over at work! I have my life back, for the moment, and it is much less stressful. I have been taking down notes and brainstorming a bunch for the blog here, I just haven't had the energy to implement any of it. Seriously, rich people and their children can be nightmares when shopping for school supplies. I did have some really surprising customers, but for the most part they were monsters. But it's over now. I'm going to shake it off and move on.

While discussing my ideas with friends the other day (Erica Dawkins, over at The Daily Rawr: Veggiesaurus and her husband Dan. He's my boss at my real job), that maybe a review of the systems I play was in order. After mulling over for about ten seconds, I realized that her idea was a good one for two reasons. First, I have a lot of friends that are new to tabletop RPGs, and I would love to introduce them to some other fantastic ones outside of our staple D&D. The second was a fun little byproduct of the first, in that in breaking these down for others, I can analyze the elements of them I would like to use in the implementation of my own RPG.

So, in the coming weeks, I'm going to be doing an Intro to RPGs 101 series. I'll being going over basics of typical game play, etiquette, jargon and actual reviews of the systems themselves.They say that best way to master something is to teach others, and I agree. I love to bring new people into gaming, and I hope this turns into a great tool for that.

On to other topics, Varen D'Cannith, my hybrid wizard/artificer, has been waylaid by Dan springing a premade adventure on us. I scrambled to make a tank as quick as I could, and ended up with a very fun fighter. Because I had less than twenty four hours to make the character, I didn't have time for my usual indecisiveness. I just went with my gut, and out cam Sir Allestyr Cormaygne, hedge knight. He has little backstory, hits like a ton of bricks, and is a blast to play.

Also, I love that this is the first character I've had that the other players have nicknamed. They call him Al.

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======

Sir Allestyr Cormaygne, level 1

Human, Fighter (Weaponmaster)

Fighter Option: Combat Superiority

Fighter Talents Option: Two-handed Weapon Talent

Human Power Selection Option: Bonus At-Will Power

Borderland Nobility (Diplomacy class skill)

Theme: Chevalier

FINAL ABILITY SCORES

STR 18, CON 14, DEX 15, INT 13, WIS 14, CHA 13

STARTING ABILITY SCORES

STR 16, CON 14, DEX 15, INT 13, WIS 14, CHA 13

AC: 17 Fort: 17 Ref: 13 Will: 13

HP: 29 Surges: 11 Surge Value: 7

TRAINED SKILLS

Athletics +11, Diplomacy +6, Endurance +7, Heal +7

UNTRAINED SKILLS

Acrobatics +2, Arcana +1, Bluff +1, Dungeoneering +2, History +1, Insight +2, Intimidate +1, Nature +2, Perception +2, Religion +1, Stealth +2, Streetwise +1, Thievery +2

POWERS

Basic Attack: Melee Basic Attack

Basic Attack: Ranged Basic Attack

Chevalier Attack: Valiant Charge

Fighter Attack: Combat Challenge

Fighter Attack 1: Weapon Master's Strike

Fighter Attack 1: Cleave

Fighter Attack 1: Footwork Lure

Fighter Attack 1: Hack and Hew

Fighter Attack 1: Lasting Threat

FEATS

Level 1: Steel Vanguard Student

Level 1: Agile Superiority

ITEMS

Greatsword x1

Scale Armor x1

Adventurer's Kit

Potion of Healing (heroic tier)

And on that note, I'm going to go work on the outline for the next couple of weeks. feel free to comment and leave suggestions for systems you want to see reviewed, or topics covered in the Basic Training. Peace!

Beam Katanas and Blasters

I am a science fiction geek above all else. I love space marines of every flavor, spaceships are awesome, and robots make the best bad guys (aliens, clones, and mutants too.) Don't get me wrong, fantasy is really cool too, but my first love has always been sci-fi. It all started with Ray Bradbury, a story called A Sound of Thunder, and a show called The The X-Files. I've seen every episode of that show, and it was palatable enough for regular viewers that I could watch it with my dad. Growing up, this was the highlight of my Friday nights. We'd sit down around eight or so, and watch whichever show Fox hadn't cancelled this week until nine, when Chris Carter's masterpiece would air. And for the next hour, I'd geek out with my father, and it was acceptable. I look back on those nights as both some of the happiest of my childhood and the beginnings of the kind of man I'd become. Uncle Matt (the man that raised me, and for all intents my dad growing up) didn't always understand my obsession with weird games and stories, but he did know that they made me happy. We'd talk about how unlikely the situations Agents Mulder and Scully found themselves in. We'd argue about the science of some of it, but in the end, we enjoyed. As far as interests go, this was one of the few things that we'd shared.

As far as time travel stories go, I feel there are only two worth mentioning. The first is the Back to the Future trilogy, because it's the fun romp the eighties sci-fi epitomized. The second is A Sound of Thunder. I read this story as part of an anthology of Ray Bradbury short stories. It very quietly began to change the way I felt about stories. Sometimes things don't work out in the end. What a novel concept. I had tragedies prior to this, but none had consequences of that scope. It shook my world view. Now, I didn't immediately go out and start writing tragedies, or even darker material at all. But over time, I came to the realization that the best stories were the ones that were unapologetic in their delivery. A Sound of Thunder is blatant sci-fi, but it tells the most real of stories. Action has consequence, and you can't be afraid to show these consequences. Sometimes the hero can't make things right.

You're probably asking what all this has to do with myself and gaming? Everything, really. I play D&D because I don't have a great alternative sci-fi rpg out there.The Dark Heresy trilogy is a fantastic piece of gaming, GURPS is universally known in the community, and everybody likes Shadowrun. But how many people do you know that actually play these systems? Or any of the many other really wonderful and flavorful sci-fi systems out there? I think this because these systems depend a bit too heavily on their settings to sell themselves. D&D, which is arguably the best platform out here right now, is so good because it's modular. It's whatever you want it to be. Want high adventure and espionage? Eberron. High fantasy? Forgotten Realms. Gritty survival? Dark Sun. The list goes on and on.

Which leads me to my point. Can a sci-fi rpg be made to be modular AND exciting? I think so. I'm currently working up an alpha rules set for what I hope to be my take on this. I'm going to keep posting on this topic, it's near and dear to my heart.

On to other things, I've made a character for an upcoming Eberron campaign I'm going to be playing in. I'm playing a member of House Cannith that works to repair lightning rails. We're starting at level one, and I decided to try the hybriding rules to make an artificer/wizard. Without further adieu, here is Varen D'Cannith.

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======

Varen D'Cannith, level 1

Human, Artificer/Wizard

Hybrid Artificer Option: Hybrid Artificer Will

Hybrid Talent Option: Arcane Implement Mastery

Arcane Implement Mastery Option: Staff of Defense

Human Power Selection Option: Bonus At-Will Power

Cannith Tinker (+2 to Thievery)

Theme: Alchemist

FINAL ABILITY SCORES

STR 11, CON 15, DEX 13, INT 17, WIS 15, CHA 12

STARTING ABILITY SCORES

STR 11, CON 15, DEX 13, INT 15, WIS 15, CHA 12

AC: 14 Fort: 13 Ref: 14 Will: 15

HP: 26 Surges: 8 Surge Value: 6

TRAINED SKILLS

Arcana +8, Dungeoneering +7, History +8, Thievery +8

UNTRAINED SKILLS

Acrobatics +1, Athletics +0, Bluff +1, Diplomacy +1, Endurance +2, Heal +2, Insight +2, Intimidate +1, Nature +2, Perception +2, Religion +3, Stealth +1, Streetwise +1

POWERS

Artificer Feature: Healing Infusion: Curative Admixture

Artificer Feature: Healing Infusion: Resistive Formula

Wizard Utility: Ghost Sound

Wizard Utility: Light

Wizard Utility: Mage Hand

Wizard Utility: Prestidigitation

Staff of Defense Power: Staff of Defense

Wizard Attack 1: Arc Lightning

Artificer Attack 1: Magic Weapon

Wizard Attack 1: Stone Blood

Wizard Attack 1: Icy Terrain

Wizard Attack 1: Flaming Sphere

FEATS

Alchemist

Level 1: Staff Expertise

Level 1: Hybrid Talent

ITEMS

Alchemist's Acid

Staff Implement x1

Cloth Armor (Basic Clothing) x1

Adventurer's Kit

Thieves' Tools

Alchemy Case

Alchemist's Acid (level 1)

I'm hoping to have artwork of him up sometime this week.

Cop Out

Work has been extremely hectic these past two weeks. I have a topic for my next post, but haven't really been able to flesh it out due to crazy scheduling. I promise once back to school is over, I'll get back on the horse. I just don't have any energy right now. I'm hoping to get home at a decent hour tomorrow. If I do, I'll get something written, for sure. Thanks for your patience.

Sugar and Smoke

So I'm mildly in awe of my roommate Travis's ability to play a female character. Her name is Seldom, a human stone fist monk. She never speaks, and looks like a small Asian girl with mauy thai ropes wrapped about her chest, arms and shins. She is a little bad ass. Granted, she never talks, but I honestly never feel like he's out of character. I cannot comprehend how to do this. I have ideas for female characters all the time, but I have to relegate them to pc (player character, for my family that reads this) purgatory because I just can't get behind rping a girl. I like female characters (I mean, who doesn't?), I enjoy writing about them, but when it comes to actually acting it out, I'm useless. I have no problem with female npc's as a dm. I don't know if it's a problem or just a preference thing. Something to explore in the future, I guess.

So, upon reminiscing about this, I began to realize something about fantasy rpgs in general. Unlike fantasy fiction, in which female characters are the norm, in the gaming world, they seem to be left to the wayside. Occasionally npc, rarely actual characters unless the player is a woman. Which are also pretty rare. While I always campaign for the inclusion of more female gamers, it seems like a lost cause. I do enjoy a good damsel in distress but sometimes I think it's really awesome when a female takes charge, thwarts the bad guy, or, heaven forbid, tanks. I think it would give a campaign a lot more flavor if the women were more than occasional set pieces.Of course, I fall victim to these very same pitfalls. So I'm going to try and research some better ways of acting for dming, and give a female character a chance for once. Equality, right?

I think I would like to start with D&D for this dilemma (Deathwatch isn't really the venue for this problem). I'm going to knock out some ideas, and have it for an upcoming post.

Raging isn't just for Barbarians

I have aggression problems. As in, when confronted by things I don't like, I like to steamroll over other people regardless of their feelings. Society tells me this is an inappropriate way to handle these emotions, and that I'm supposed to back down and talk things out, or accept that I've done something wrong.

Bullshit.

Let me explain. We live in a society that expects us to repress our most basic emotions in a way that causes us to resent having them. I personally don't ever resent being angry (in fact, it's something of a normal state of being for me), but I do resent when I don't control it well. I'll give you, yelling isn't always the 'best' way of handling it, but being upset is a part of being alive. I get tired of being told to not be angry. Never going to happen, pal. Tell me to not lash out, fair enough. If you don't agree, I respect that.

Now on to the root of the problem for me. People always equate anger as a negative emotion, whereas I see it as healthy and even necessary for motivation and progress. Content people don't push themselves to grow. When I'm comfortable, I sure don't like doing anything. Being upset makes me realize there is something in my environment that I need to fix, and occasionally gives me the extra 'oomph' I need to do something about it. So, how do I reconcile my personal philosophy with society's expectations? I don't know, and I realize the has held me back several times in my life.

I will say that gaming, and the act of character building in particular, is one of my favorite ways to relieve stress. My problems aren't going anywhere, so the option of not being me for a few hours every couple weeks is a balm to my soul. No kidding. D&D, Deathwatch (that one is a personal favorite), Shadowrun have all helped me through some really rough patches. The characters I make in these games are all idealized versions of myself. The are allowed to do the things I'm not, react with the violence of action and purpose that I'm told has no place in the real world. I'm an escapist, I except that. But when reality can be as disappointing as we all know it can be, everyone has a way to get away. And besides, I don't want to be someone else, just a better version of me.

Sorry there wasn't much gaming in this post, but I needed an outlet for recent frustrations. I'm going to do my damnedest to post on a Mon-Wed-Fri schedule, and tomorrow I'm going to shoot for expanding into Deathwatch. Ave Imperator!

Axes in the Dark

Right, I have moved. That was tiring beyond measure. Need to work out more, so stairs aren't such an obstacle. Got to see my sister last week, and she brought the whole family with her. My new nephew is so small, I have no other adjective for him yet. It's very odd holding a baby when you have little contact with children. I never babysat or really had younger siblings (my younger sister is only two years my junior) so I have zero idea what to do when someone hands me a baby. It's scary. I'm a big guy, and Tucker (that's my nephew) was only the size of my forearm. A whole person fits in my arm! My mind was blown.

So, on to gaming stuff, because babies freak me out after a while. With the new apartment comes a new venue for our group. I'm excited to play again, and I'm still being wishy-washy about my bard, Baron Saiga. I've been annoyed with his performance (his most memorable moment so far has been falling off a dock and almost drowning) and really don't know what to do. I Like the character, but his class is, I don't know... underwhelming. I think I'm focusing too much on being the super leader/healer, and not enough on enjoying the role I've picked for him. He's the third son of a noble devoted to the Raven Queen. Actually, his entire family is, and to escape that, he joined the military as an aide de camp to a general of the Ikemmu army. He did well and was being groomed for a command of his own one day. So the bard thing I played up as more of a military drummer or dirge, and he just used magic to control the tempo of battle. Now I kind of want him to lose the magic, because it isn't working out the way I wanted it to, but Dan pointed out I wasn't rping him as well as I could be. I'm going to stop coaching the other players, and just start making decisions, and hope they can catch on to what's going on. He thinks forcing the officer will help me enjoy him a lot more, and I'm very willing to try. I don't like dreading playing a character.

In my efforts to make an alpha-striking half orc of some type, I realized that unlike earlier editions of D&D, you cannot sneak attack with just any weapon. There is a very specific list, which consists of the rogue weapon proficiency list (go figure) and a couple of weapons that can be expanded by feats. That's it. I was dissatisfied by this as I really, really, wanted to use a fullblade with this build. Do't get me wrong, I understand the design philosophy behind limiting the weapons to those classically favored by rogues. I was just upset that there was no way to expand it. I wanted my burly half orc Vandall to step out of the shadows and cleave an enemy in twain. So I'm adding this particular issue to my list of ideas to pitch to Wizards of the Coast come October. I'm thinking to balance it, I'm going to limit it to racially favored weapons i.e. hammers for dwarven rogues, longswords for eladrin and so forth. Should be interesting.

I Only Reflect at Night

Well, it's 1:30 am, and surprise surprise, I can't sleep. Well, we got approved for our apartment finally, so that's a relief. I have a week to pack up my astonishingly large number of belongings to be ready for the move on Sunday. I am excited, but the apprehension of actually getting everything done is playing havoc with my ability to sleep. Shocker, I know. It's okay, though. Sleep and I parted ways when I left Ocala to live here.

Session two of the Shattered Seas campaign was a success. I really drew on a lot of older things I had seen other DMs do over the years to keep it interesting. I did a successful split of the party, one half of them scaling a tower to steal something from a noble while the bard and the sorcerer kept the noble busy at a concert. It was a refreshing change of pace from my typical very serious role playing. My group, which consists of my current roommate Travis, his friend Steve, and our mutual friend Dan, are very new to D&D. This leads to a lot of creative energy you don't see in experienced players because they just aren't burnt out yet. It is absolutely invigorating as someone who's been playing for years. Their take on things constantly lights all of these games in new ways. So my next challenge for them is actually much more of a challenge for me. I'm going to give them a puzzle. I'm terrible at puzzles. I have no patience for them, and they can be terrifying to adjudicate. So I've made the decision to do the thing I fear to overcome it. I'm hoping I become a better writer because of it.

Next session is going to be Dan's group. It's a large one, six players in total. I'm the only healer, a bard. Now, I was originally attempting to make a character that was a bit on the lighter side. I failed miserably, despite my (maybe) best efforts. Because of this, I've been working with Dan to workout a way to fix my problems with 1. playing a bard when the rest of the group has seen a much funnier bard in Trav's, and 2. play a character that is much more in line with my play-style. We agreed to "kill" Baron Saiga van Rahzvahn (see what I meant by less serious?) and have brought back to life sans magic as a warlord. I'm excited both for the rp value here, and also for the chance to sink my teeth into a much more mechanically satisfying player character. I really enjoy the flavor of a martial captain, and it really fits the backstory well. We'll see how it goes. Going to try and get some sleep now, posting may be sporadic through the move. I apologize in advance.

Inauspicious Beginnings

This is going to be an attempt to 1. write more consistently, 2. use writing as a vehicle for dealing with a bunch of my frustrations. I do not believe that anything I say is important, I just need to vent. Hence, I have turned to the internet like so many before me. I'm primarily going to speak about being a low income geek, as it's the only thing I'm actually an expert on. Fun stuff.

I'm sitting in my room, (it's a disaster) packing for a move to a new apartment. The last few years of my life have for the most part, been fairly stable. I have moved a lot in the past, so this isn't anything new. Still though, I'm not good with apprehension. I like packing as a cleansing exercise, clearing away stuff I don't need anymore.

Have a D&D session this weekend, too. I've been able to finally use the campaign setting I've been working on for years! Dragons everywhere! I was very excited about this until I stumbled upon Chris Perkins' Iomandra campaign. For those of you not familiar with Wizards of the Coast, Chris Perkins is one of the gentlemen that writes and creates for D&D. He is a fantastic DM, and his work with the Penny Arcade guys is truly fun to listen to. Anyway, Iommandra, come to find out, is an island based, dragon-themed campaign setting. Man, Shattered Seas (my setting) feels like a cheap knock off. Damn. Well, back to packing for now.